Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 15th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I will now call this meeting to order.

Welcome, all, to meeting number nine of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

I'd like to start by acknowledging that I am joining you today from the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabe and Chonnonton nations.

Pursuant to the order of reference of April 20, 2020, the committee is meeting for the purpose of receiving evidence concerning matters related to the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today's meeting is taking place by video conference, and the proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. During this meeting, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee.

In order to facilitate the work of our interpreters and ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline the following rules.

Interpretation in this video conference will work very much as it does in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either floor, English or French. In order to resolve the sound issues raised in recent virtual committee meetings and ensure clear audio transmissions, we ask those who wish to speak during the meetings to set your interpretation language as follows. If speaking in English, please ensure that you are on the English channel. If speaking in French, please ensure that you are on the French channel. As you are speaking, if you plan to alternate from one language to the other, you will also need to switch the interpretation channel so that it aligns with the language you are speaking. You may want to allow for a short pause when switching languages.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can either click on the microphone icon to activate your mike or you can hold down the space bar while you are speaking. When you release the bar, your mike will mute itself, just like a walkie-talkie.

I remind you that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. Should members need to request the floor outside of their designated time for questions, they should activate their microphone and state that they have a point of order. If a member wishes to intervene on a point of order that has been raised by another member, they should use the “raise hand” function. This will signal to the chair their interest to speak. In order to do so, they should click on “participants” at the bottom of the screen. When the list pops up, they will see next to their name that they can click “raise hand”. I will try to be very attentive to that today.

When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your microphone should be on mute. The use of headsets is strongly encouraged. If you have earbuds with a microphone, please hold the microphone near your mouth when you are speaking to boost the sound quality for our interpreters.

Should any technical challenges arise, for example, in relation to interpretation or if you are accidentally disconnected, please advise the chair or clerk immediately, and the technical team will work to resolve the issue. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times, as we need to ensure all members are able to participate fully.

Before we get started, can everyone click on their screen in the top right-hand corner and ensure that they are on gallery view? With this view you should be able to see all of the participants in a grid view. This will ensure that all video participants can see one another.

During this meeting we will follow the same rules that usually apply to opening statements and the rounds of questioning of witnesses during our regular meetings. Each witness will have up to five minutes for an opening statement, followed by the usual rounds of questions by members.

Now it is time to welcome our witnesses. From the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People Manitoba Coalition, we have Hilda Anderson-Pyrz and Sandra DeLaronde. From the Native Women’s Association of Canada, we have Lorraine Whitman. Actually, we're still waiting for Ms. Whitman. From Women of the Métis Nation, we have Melanie Omeniho.

We'll begin with five minutes of witness testimony, starting with Hilda Anderson-Pyrz and Sandra DeLaronde.

Please go ahead with your opening statement.

[Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, Co-Chair, MMIWG2S+ - Manitoba Coalition]

Thank you for the opportunity to present to the standing committee.

I wish to acknowledge the land and the people of Treaty 1 and Treaty 5 territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation.

My name is Hilda Anderson-Pyrz and I'm the co-chair of the MMIWG Manitoba Coalition. The coalition is composed of diverse indigenous representation from non-profit women and family serving organizations, indigenous governments, individuals, MMIWG2S+ family members and survivors. I am here because you really need to understand us as indigenous people and how COVID-19 is impacting indigenous communities and organizations.

Canada, you need to respect the sovereignty of nations and allow us the autonomy to make our own decisions. We need you settlers to listen, not because it is a nice thing to do, but because it is the lawful thing to do. What the pandemic is doing is exacerbating the inequalities that we already knew were there. We are seeing violence. We are seeing discrimination. Now we are seeing more violence. We are faced with challenges about how we provide front-line supports for people because of the physical distancing and the lack of adequate resources.

The pandemic is exacerbating our crisis. We knew the health care systems in first nation communities were poor before. Now we are seeing truly what a breaking point they are at when it comes to supporting survivors of violence and those impacted by the pandemic. We are living the impact of short-term, project-specific funding, which is detrimental to indigenous communities and organizations. Stable, long-term funding is critical to having the capacity and the ability to pivot quickly into something like a pandemic.

The communities know best where they need to pivot to meet the needs of that moment. What the pandemic is showing us is that we need to be nimble. You cannot simply ask indigenous communities and organizations to pivot all their funding to the COVID-19 pandemic, because the disparity that indigenous communities and organizations were dealing with before the pandemic is still there. In some areas there is even a greater need. Yes, we need COVID funding, and indigenous people still need the funding that was inadequate before the pandemic. Yes, we need the anti-violence funding. We now need that more than ever, and we need specific resources to respond to the COVID context.

Additionally, we have seen that there has been an increase in the number of gender and human rights violations, such as the lack of access to food security, shelter and medical care. We do not have the adequate resources to address and support victims of violence. If supports are not readily available, we will continue to die and experience alarming rates of violence.

It is time for this government to fully implement the 231 calls for justice. We cannot wait any longer. Our lives are sacred.

Thank you.

[Sandra DeLaronde, Co-Chair, MMIWG2S+ - Manitoba Coalition]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.

My name is Sandra DeLaronde and I'm also co-chair of the Manitoba Coalition. We thank the standing committee for the opportunity to present today.

We acknowledge this government and provincial and territorial governments for finally establishing a national inquiry in 2016, after more than 20 years of advocacy by families, survivors and indigenous women's organizations, although we are concerned about the lack of inclusion in creating a national strategy to end the violence.

This pandemic is highlighting the desperate, impossible situation our women and girls and 2SLGBTQIA find themselves in. Imagine the terror of being locked in with your abuser for weeks and now months.

We have three requests for this committee.

The first one is that Winnipeg is the only city without a low-barrier safe space for women and girls to protect them from staggering rates of violence by intimate partners and through trafficking.

Second, along with the violence walks homelessness, particularly for indigenous women who are fleeing. The lack of decent housing in the city and on reserve means that multiple generations of families live in a single family home in some communities. The count ranges up to 30 people in a two-bedroom home. This chronic underfunding and profoundly inadequate circumstances existed long before COVID-19, but the pandemic is more deadly because women have no housing options and nowhere to go.

Third, of the 634 first nations in Canada, there are only 46 funded women's shelters and only four shelters exist in Manitoba first nations.

The final quick point I'd like to make is about mental health and well-being. The long-term effects need to be addressed now and for the long term. As a coalition, we'd like to thank Leah Gazan, MP for Winnipeg Centre, for her efforts in supporting our community to ensure the well-being of indigenous women and, indeed, all women who are at risk for violence. We look forward to working with this government to end violence and make this country one where every human being is safe, because we deserve nothing else. We remember those many women—mothers, daughters and sisters—who have gone missing or murdered because of a lack of action.

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

I see that we're joined by Ms. Whitman now.

Ms. Whitman, if you're ready to go, you have five minutes. You're next on the order paper.

Please go ahead, and welcome.

[Lorraine Whitman, President, Native Women's Association of Canada]

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Lorraine Whitman, Grandmother White Sea Turtle, and I'm president of the Native Women's Association of Canada.

I am also here to represent the rights of first nations, Métis and Inuit women across Canada and internationally.

You have asked me here today to talk to you about the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting indigenous women. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to share NWAC's findings and also our concerns.

We have been working on our horrific problem of missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people for decades, and we are the organization whose calls for action led to the inquiry that submitted its final report and recommendations in June of last year. I am here today to talk about the pandemic but I am also here to talk about the violence in our communities, and these two issues are fundamentally linked.

Canadians across the country are fearful about the health effects that the disease is having on their loved ones, and the financial and social toll it is taking on them and their communities. For indigenous women those fears are amplified many times over. I don't need to tell you that before COVID-19 hit our shores, indigenous women and their children were among the most vulnerable population in Canada, but I am going to say it anyway: We are vulnerable. We need help. We are worried, with all the other problems being created by this disease, that we will be overlooked by governments, that promises of help made months ago will be abandoned, and that many of us will die as a result of this virus and as a result of its incubation in this social poverty in which many indigenous women now live.

As the pandemic grew, NWAC conducted a needs assessment with its provincial and territorial member associations, all but two via phone, and it has resulted in painting a frightening picture. The federal government's own statistics show that spousal abuse of indigenous women is more than three times higher than that of non-indigenous women. Imagine being forced during a pandemic to self-isolate in a small house on a reserve with many family members and a spouse who is already prone to being abusive, a spouse who no longer has his usual outlet for letting off steam.

Statistics also say that before the pandemic struck, 53% of abused indigenous women feared for their lives. Imagine the depth of their fear now as they are confined in their homes day after day, dealing in some cases with a lack of clean water for basic hygiene.

In response to our needs assessment, our affiliate, the Nunavut Inuit Women's Association, said it is extremely concerned that levels of violence have been on the increase since the country went into lockdown. Self-isolation isn't possible in overcrowded housing or shelters, and the shelters in Nunavut were already full most of the time anyway. In the stress of the disease the Nunavut Inuit Women's Association is extremely concerned that many who were not already suffering abuse or mental illness may be subject to attacks or may resort to self-harm or even suicide.

You have probably heard the good news that so far there are no cases of COVID-19 in Nunavut, but we all know that we are on the downside of the first wave. What happens when the second wave strikes, and the disease makes its way to the Far North? The single Nunavut hospital base in Iqaluit, with its 35 beds and seven ventilators serving a population of 38,000, is not equipped to deal with it.

Elsewhere in Canada, there are no medical resources on some first nations to test people who appear to be symptomatic. Support systems like community counselling and other programs have been withdrawn, and the mechanisms established to help other people cope with their special needs have disappeared. When our women try to reach out to each other with video or phone conferencing as other Canadians do, there is a lack of privacy, but of course the poorest among them do not have access to that kind of technology.

Our women are also resilient. In some communities, they are using donations to stock food banks and to ensure that the people who are most in need of help are getting it. In other—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Ms. Whitman, I'm sorry to interrupt you. We're having a few technical issues with the translation.

That said, the five-minute time for your presentation is up. I'm sure you have more to say. Perhaps that will occur later on in our discussion, but for now we have to leave it there. Someone from technical support will probably give you a phone call while we go on with our meeting, and then we'll be back again.

[Lorraine Whitman]

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you. I'm sorry about that interruption.

Finally, we will have a five-minute intervention from Melanie Omeniho, from Women of the Métis Nation.

Melanie, please.

[Melanie Omeniho, President, Women of the Métis Nation - Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak]

Good afternoon.

I want to begin by thanking the standing committee for inviting Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak to speak here today. The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up all of our lives, and it is critical that we come together to discuss the unique impacts it is having on Métis women and how to effectively respond to these evolving impacts.

I want to identify, too, that I'm on the land of Treaty 6 and Treaty 8 and the Métis homeland. I'm in Alberta.

One of the things that we believe, as women of the Métis Nation, that is really important is that we have a gendered, distinctions-based lens. That is absolutely needed in the federal government’s response to this pandemic. The federal government has been responding to that distinctions-based lens, which has made it so that we, as Métis people, are able to develop unique things towards our dealing with this pandemic. Métis women need to be included in the decisions, conversations and work that is done as it relates to us. There can be nothing about us without us.

I want to take a brief moment to illustrate what we are seeing in our communities. In areas with limited access to medical care, Métis women risk contracting the virus when they use public transit. What compounds this even further is that many Métis women are caregivers to many family members, creating multi-generational households, and thus risk spreading the virus to at-risk individuals, such as grandparents and infants. This is especially true for the many Métis women who are front-line, essential workers and do not have the luxury of staying at home.

We are seeing in Fort McMurray further outbreaks of COVID-19 because of the man camps and the working structures around the oil and gas sectors. Fort McMurray is also the second Métis community to have experienced flooding during this pandemic, adding another layer of crisis on top of the one that the entire country is facing. Fort McMurray is one of the historical Métis communities in Alberta, along with Fort Vermilion, which also experienced the flooding.

We are seeing in many communities that certain software and technologies are required to participate in school programs, but because of funding limitations, the responsibility falls to the parents to provide these. Métis women and families who cannot afford this are concerned that their children are going to fall behind because school isn't going to be resuming before the fall, if it even resumes then.

Navigating this pandemic is especially challenging for those without a stable Internet connection or even a basic connection to the Internet.

In many of the communities, Métis women cannot protect themselves and their families because there is no soap, hand sanitizer or toilet paper to be found. Food insecurity is also a very real issue, and even flour is unavailable throughout many communities. This is increasing the already mounting stress, anxiety and depression that many Métis women feel.

It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is that a careful approach is taken to address the occurrences of domestic violence and the situations of abuse that are increasing because of the stressors brought by this pandemic. In fact, violence and abuse are made even more possible because of increased isolation, not just at home but in the rural communities where isolation is more acutely felt. Abuse is now going on without regular monitoring because of reduced reporting and the lack of community support, as many child protective services are temporarily closed. Better monitoring is especially important for youth who are aging out of care during this pandemic.

Our communities and families aren’t in touch in the ways that they were before COVID-19 hit. When people aren’t in touch, there is increased concern surrounding human trafficking and missing persons. If a Métis woman goes missing during this time, very few people will even know about it.

Canada’s plan has expressly called for support for indigenous women, but rural and remote Métis women have considerably less access to shelters and sexual abuse centres. The federal government has prioritized funding supports for women’s shelters and sexual assault centres, but more must be done to ensure that rural Métis women can reach their supports, during this time especially.

That said—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Ms. Omeniho, we're at five minutes.

[Melanie Omeniho]

I can close at that for now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We'll have a lots of time through questioning to pick up any points we've missed.

Before we go to our six-minute question round, we had a couple of technical issues.

Ms. Zann, are you well connected once again? Okay, you're good.

Madam Clerk, are we looking after Ms. Whitman's technical issues?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Evelyn Lukyniuk]

Yes. Perhaps we could hear a bit from Ms. Whitman right now so we can check the audio quality again to see if anything has improved.

Ms. Whitman.

[Lorraine Whitman]

Did you want me to continue?

We have some ideas in terms of what we can do quickly—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm sorry, Ms. Whitman. We're just doing a sound check.

The interpreters are hearing you very well. It's better now.

[Lorraine Whitman]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

We'll go on with our questioning now.

For the six-minute round, we have Mr. Viersen, Mr. Powlowski, Ms. Bérubé and Ms. Gazan.

Mr. Viersen, please, you have six minutes.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

I've been engaged on the human trafficking file for as long as I've been elected, and what's concerning to me is that, particularly in Canada, 50% of the human trafficking cases involve first nations women. We are seeing right now, during the COVID pandemic, that many of the organizations that deal with helping the victims of human trafficking are, as is every organization in Canada, struggling with COVID and that their funding is no longer being continued going forward. I've just released a letter to the minister asking him to consider that.

Could NWAC in particular respond as to whether they have seen any increases in human trafficking cases during the COVID pandemic, and whether the funding is continuing to help them in this endeavour?

[Lorraine Whitman]

What we have noticed is more the violence, the domestic abuse. From what we have done with our surveys, our assessment as well as this online survey that we have, we've found 68% more abuse with our women, 64% more elder abuse, and another 64% more child abuse. It hasn't mentioned any more in regard to the human trafficking. It's more the abuse while being self-isolated and social distancing, where the individual is in the same home as their abuser.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Okay. That's interesting.

Continuing on, have you heard from any of the organizations that you would typically work with in combatting human trafficking?

They've been reaching out to me. I just wonder whether you've been hearing anything from them.

[Lorraine Whitman]

No, I haven't heard any more about it, but I do know that the women are working more on the trafficking component.

With the social distancing, again, it's difficult to be able to be there to help them physically. We do have calls that are coming in. It's more in the line of abuse and domestic violence that we're seeing the increase escalate far more.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

How have the organizations been dealing with that? Given the fact that people aren't able to move around, have they been moving online or anything such as that?

[Lorraine Whitman]

We do have our survey that has been up, and in-house we have four of our elders answering calls online, whether they be from women experiencing violence or calls relating to suicide and what have you. We've been working in that area.

We've also put in proposals to assist us in being able to work with our grassroots. We have 13 offices in different provinces and we would mobilize the women so that they would be able to assist in whatever way they can, but the funding makes it difficult for the women on the ground to be able to mobilize. They take calls whenever they can from their area and give them best resources they can that are available to the women.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Ms. Anderson-Pyrz, do you have any comments around that?

[Hilda Anderson-Pyrz]

I would say, especially from the perspective of indigenous women and girls from remote and isolated locations, it's really critical to ensure that supports that fund organizations that deal with human trafficking and sexual exploitation remain and increase. Many times when our women and girls leave our communities and go to urban populations, they're very vulnerable. Aside from COVID, the human trafficking is still proceeding but it's hidden much more now. We need to really ramp up our supports and do things a little differently to ensure that we're available to protect the lives of indigenous women and girls, and two-spirited people as well.

It's very disheartening to hear that funding is being cut to these very important organizations to help end human trafficking and sexual exploitation.